Signs 101 Membership Qualifications

[Fred Weiss]

Since the beginnings of Signs 101, we have tailored our community to be a venue for professional sign makers, related professions with an interest in also manufacturing signs and selling them to others, newcomers seeking to enter the craft, teachers, and suppliers to our craft. In recent years, we have introduced a registration form designed to screen out end users from our community.

Making this distinction is at times difficult and troubling. In most cases, we use a distinction of selling a sign or other graphic product to end users for a profit and do not accept those who don't. So, for example, we would accept a university with their own in-house graphics department because they most likely do make products that are sold to students, alumni and fans. But we would decline a grocery chain or a beer distributor who is simply producing their own advertising signage.

The question that often comes up in my mind though, with some registrations, is that because some of the companies being turned down are so large that they are beyond the scope of being serviced by a professional sign company that perhaps they should be admitted to our community. That they may have things to contribute that exceed any disadvantage their acceptance might carry with it.

Case in point ... as this is written, we have a major airline wanting to join Signs 101. Our existing criteria for member acceptance says that we should not accept them as a member. What do you think?

 

[BigfishDM]

Let them in is what I say

 

[Just Another Sign Guy]

as a MM i have done business with beer distributors, airlines, buslines, companies with in house display departments from knotts berry farm to dinsey to kroger to nordstrom, etc...in more than one capacity. from selling them equipment, materials/supplies, installation services, providing emergency last minute prints in locations on an on demand basis. in my opinion there is room for everyone to profit from their involvement and not just from a sales perspective.

these guys typically do a TON of volume, they have equipment resources we can not imagine, they have volume purchasing arrangements, and can help others who need to be guided down those paths.

it leads to potential jobs for those who need installation work, design work, management work, etc.

it opens the doors for vendors to build relationships to have an opportunity to present their products/services.

i dont see a conflict in this instance.

now that i think about it when i was producing signs the two largest individual projects i did were for an airline...applying graphics and wrapping a hangar (with banner material) for a special event ...big business. lots of opportunity

 

[Border]

As long as they are only seeking info for their own internal needs and not also competing with regular sign shops for business, I say let 'em in.

 

[petepaz]

does it help us or hurt us if they join?
if they are large enough that they feel it's in there best interest to purchase a printer for internal graphics wether they are here or not they will still do it.
do you feel they will have anything to offer or help us with down the road?
do we reject them as members because we feel they are taking the work away from us?
not sure it matters either way. when you search through the member lists there are a ton of people signed up they don't have many posts or only the post from when they signed up so perhaps they should be weeded out?

 

[300mphGraphics]

some of the companies being turned down are so large that they are beyond the scope of being serviced by a professional sign company

Not too sure about that statement, but letting them in could also help the Merchant Members.

 

[wildside]

a lot of the large companies that have internal sign departments, are hiring "professional" sign people to work in those departments, i would rather see those people here instead of the ones that just bought a chinese plotter on ebay and need someone to hold their hand as they look for the power button and then ask what is a yard sign made of...

 

[Just Another Sign Guy]

my other thought is that i would rather that they were honest and let in for being honest than just saying i'm "Joe and I work in the sign business" when in reality they are Joe Running the in house print department at Nike or wherever

 

[Pat Whatley]

Let them in....a major airline might help SignManiac get the coroplane off the ground.

 

[Joe Diaz]

Let them in....a major airline might help SignManiac get the coroplane off the ground.

:ROFLMAO:

a lot of the large companies that have internal sign departments, are hiring "professional" sign people to work in those departments, i would rather see those people here instead of the ones that just bought a chinese plotter on ebay and need someone to hold their hand as they look for the power button and then ask what is a yard sign made of...

Perhaps if there were a way to distinguish the two during registration...

But I don't think it would matter that much. We get those people anyway. It might be easier just to ignore those people... or as individuals we can choose whether or not we should help another person based on whatever standards each of us think those people must meet.

 

[ddarlak]

let them in.... don't punish the sign guy that works for budweiser, just cuz it's budweiser.....

in the end, he's still known as sign guy

 

[Gino]

Once again… a toughie, Fred.

I can see the advantage to letting someone like that in, but I can see where many more people might see differently.

• For those selling equipment and supplies, it could be a golden opportunity.
• Getting information from them…. not so much, I think.
• There are those who might be losing to a company such as beer distributors, grocery chains or malls. Many of these type companies are just on the edge of pulling the plug on their sign shop and where else to find out whatever they need to know to force some local sign shop out of the picture, but the very reason all of us here ARE here…. to protect us from this very situation.
  

I know for a fact, that some of our larger customers are always scanning for ways to save money and if they stumbled across a place like this [the biggest and best forum on the web] and could join….. we could quickly lose an upper hand, cause they could out-buy the equipment we have and find someone to run it. In fact, that happened to us about 20 years ago. Not through the internet, but they took our lead employee to run their newly acquired sign shop equipment.

I know many places would be upset, if they found out some of the stuff that takes place on a forum like this and if they even pretended to have the qualifications to get in, they would certainly know how to cut many sign companies out once they read through some of the threads here.

I, personally….. don’t think this is a good idea for the general membership here, but a good opportunity for s101 and various Merchant Members.


On some scale, they are taking work away from sign shops. Just because they pulled the plug already on their EX-sign shops, does not warrant their getting in here to further their education. Schools and such, yes, but not EX-customers. Other then there size, it's no different from the guy that bought a plotter to do his own race car or letter his own truck to cut out the middleman. The airline wants to letter their own trucks, jets and terminals.... whose pockets are they honestly taking money out of ?? They are cutting corners like every other business in this country today and where it didn't bother them years ago while we all spent money like fools on equipment advancement, they now come in and want to reap the rewards of all of our combined efforts to make this industry as profitable as it can be, to just cut us out of the picture altogether.



I vote NO 100% for the membership.

 

[Flame]

Doesn't matter who cuts their paycheck, a sign guy is still a sign guy. Same as a plumber who's indepent, then one day decides to work fulltime for a office building as their plumber. In the end, he's still a plumber, let him plumb it up.

 

[Techman]

Nothing complicated about it. Let them in. They are sign guys. They have skills to share. They are not a new competitor and competing with any one.

 

[iSign]

To me the distinction has to be like Freds comment about "what they might contribute, outweighing any downside" (in my own words)

I think a small business with small signage needs ( like the racer mentioned above) might by equipment and learn to sticker up one small line of widgets or what have you... and they will focus the rest of their attention on the widget business once we teach them to cut out the local sign providers. In these cases, lost revenues only affect a microscopically small one or two shops, but on the question of give and take, these scenarios most likely represent zero benefit for any of us, ever... All take, and no give...

So I'm against any other industry with minute sign related needs, using us, to teach them to save a few bucks cutting out their local sign guy... sure, if they have a mind to do it, they will... but for solidarity, we don't have to coach them along for zero return...

But as I hope my distinction implies, the large companies like an airline don't fit my areas of concern. Sure there might have been a few companies losing 6 figure incomes when a big company turns from sign buyer to sign maker... but as a sign making department within a big company, I think the volume AND diversity (in some cases) of their department creates at least the opportunity for reciprocal investment back into this community...

 

[Baz]

Let them in. Maybee they will offer up some discount coupons to Signs101 members :Big Laugh

 

[Letterbox Mike]

I agree with most others, they're not hurting us, if anything they're good for us. They're not in the sign business necessarily, so they're not taking food off our tables. Large corporations have in-house sign departments, that's a fact of life, always has been and always will be. Everybody's right, they're still in this business.

That said, the lawn care companies or plumbing companies that bought a cat-named chinese plotter off of Ebay to cut the sign guy out shouldn't be here. But the in-house shops for airports, hospitals, amusement parks, etc. are no threat to us.

 

[petepaz]

if you are concerned about them taking business away from i think that is no different than having like 5+ members already on the site that are within a 25-50 mile range of each other. they are all competing with each other in the same market and we all still get along and have enough work to survive. these big companies will start their own sign /graphic dept.’s regardless if we let them in or not. on the positive side could be more business for merchant members and could be job opportunities for smaller guys working out of their garages to get in with a big company that needs to hire an experienced sign guy. the other thing is if they were a customer of yours yes are going to lose them but that's it just one customer which does suck (and will happen anyway you lose customers every year and find new ones) but they won't be competing against you

 

[Jillbeans]

I have more of a problem with wanna-be CriCut, soccer mom/carnie types joining 101, in all honesty.
That and brokers pretending to be sign guys.
I don't like, for example, some companies having in-house sign makers but like Pete said, they are not really competition to me.

 

[signmeup]

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Not that I think these guys would be my enemy. I say let em join.